The Chalbi Desert lies in the extreme north-east of Kenya. A wild and seldom district, once known as the Northern Frontier, it centres on Isiolo, the northeast’s most important town and the hub for travel to Marsabit and Moyale. Southernmost of the Northern Frontier towns, Isiolo is on the border between two different worlds, the fertile highlands and the desert. The area reflects a strong Somali influence since it was here that many veteran Somali soldiers from WW1 were settled. Recruited in Aden and Kismayu, they gave up their nomadic lifestyle to become livestock and retail traders. 

The north of Kenya (over half of the countries total area) is a desert – exclusively arid land, burned out for more than ten months of the year. Once known as the Northern Frontier District (NFD) is remains one of the most exciting and adventurous parts of Africa: a vast tract of territory, crisscrossed by ancient migration routes and still tramped by the nomadic Samburu, Boran, Rendille, Gabbra, Turkana and Somali herders. 

The target for most travellers is the wonder jade se of Lake Turkana. Lake Turkana stretches south for 250km from the Ethiopian border, down through Kenya’s arid lands, bisecting the rocky deserts. It is hemmed in by sandy wastes and black and brown volcanic ranges. The lake was discovered for the rest of the world only in 1888 by the Austrians Teleki and von Hohnel, who named it Rudolf after their archduke and patron. Later it became eulogized as the Jade Sea in John Hillaby’s book about his camel trek. The name Turkana only came into being during the wholesale Kenyanization of place names in the 1970s. By then it had also been dubbed the Cradle of Mankind, due to the existence of Koobi Fora a major paleontological site. Lake Turkana is the biggest permanent desert lake in the world with a shoreline longer than the whole of Kenya’s sea cost. A mammoth inland sea fed by the headwaters of the Nile, it is famous for the presence of enormous Nile perch.